Friday, May 12, 2006

1000 years of knowledge rediscovered at Ibn Battuta

No, I'm not on commission, but I do like exhibitions with a clear narrative or theme, with well spaced exhibits I can walk around in my own time, and good background information. I don't expect this in a shopping mall.

Since I can spend hours absorbed in such things, I also like to know that I can go rest feet, mind and spirit over a coffee, before going back for more. Aha! Shopping mall!

Here are a few images of an excellent exhibition of 1000 years of Muslim achievement, at Ibn Battuta Mall. Definitely worth a special trip, especially if you can get down during the week, or on Friday mornings, when it's quieter. Don't even think about Thursday or Friday night....

In Andalucia you can find out about Abbas bin Firnas who, in the late 800s, at the age of 70, strapped on a pair of wings and stepped off a cliff near Cordoba. And lived!

This fantastic model of an irrigation system is in Tunisia - between the food court, Gloria Jean's and Cinnabon, in case you're worried about your blood sugar on your long trek across time and continents.

This wonderful clock is in the big India court, separated from the elephant clock by the seductively squishy orange banquettes of Cafe Havanna. (There's a reason I never lose weight, no matter how enthusiastically I hurl myself about at the gym.) The figures on the right are supported by wooden levers to enable them to mark the hour.

This is only a fraction of what's on show. I am so impressed by the range and attention to detail on this exhibition. Excellent.

1 comment:

Mme Cyn
said...

Except, dear MamaDuck, that every single one of the exhibition's English-language Power Point slides (or at least as many as I could stand to read) had at least one 'typo' in it! So like this place. Lovely, flashy stuff to attract attention, and then shoddy workmanship that ruins it. (BTW -- The Goat and I saw the exhibition about a month ago and did drop them a note about their appalling spelling. Maybe they -- shock, horror!-- had corrected it by the time you saw it?)